An internal review of the city's taxicab bureau will wrap up in a few weeks, with final disciplinary action expected for at least some of the five employees now serving emergency suspensions from the embattled agency, according to a city lawyer.

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Civil Service Commission hearing examiner Jay Ginsberg on Thursday pushed back by two months the appeals of the 120-day suspensions imposed in April against four Ground Transportation Bureau employees, favoring a request by assistant city attorney Victor Papai to hold off until the review is done.

One of the suspended men, taxi inspector Ronnie Blake, was arrested in April, accused of profiting in a taxi inspection sticker scam. The arrests of Blake and United Cab Co. executive Donald "Cornbread" Juneau kicked off a flurry of tumult in an agency with a long reputation for corruption.

Blake insisted Thursday that he never dealt inspection stickers for money, despite the police claim.

"You just can't do that. You can't give someone inspection stickers without a receipt," he told Ginsberg.

Other suspended bureau employees include three men credited with launching the investigation that led to the arrests of Blake and Juneau. Investigators Joie Cutrer and Travis Trahan both were suspended for alleged payroll fraud, while the city suspended their supervisor, Michael Lentz, for letting the "time and attendance" lapses fester, according to a memo.

The city claims Lentz also dropped the ball on the undercover investigation as far back as July 2009, and that it was Mayor Mitch Landrieu's deputy chief administrative officer, Ann Duplessis, who picked up the probe and kicked it to NOPD. Lentz on Thursday dismissed both allegations.

"The investigation has never ended. I'm still assisting NOPD," said Lentz, who is a former NOPD officer.

In addition to the city's administrative review, the inspector general's office is investigating possible criminal antics in the bureau. Last Friday, bureau employee Kewana Fortune quit during a city review of her performance, while the city suspended another bureau investigator, Wilton Joiner, for 60 days.

Fortune was the subject of two separate allegations: one that she accepted tips for processing taxi permits, and another that she failed to report some $1,800 in taxi transfer fees to the city.

The city suspended Joiner for violating various city policies, including the city's take-home car policy, according to Landrieu spokesman Ryan Berni.

In a separate proceeding across town Thursday, Joiner repeatedly invoked his 5th Amendment right against self-incrimination. He was being questioned in a court hearing in a rape case against a taxi driver accused of assaulting a passenger in 2009.

Joiner was required to testify because he had investigated a separate allegation that Thayer Hamdalla accosted a women in the back seat of his cab earlier in 2009, Prosecutors considered his testimony valuable in introducing a pattern of sex-related assaults by Hamdalla.

But Joiner refused to answer questions about it on Thursday in court, where it was revealed that the DA's office needed a search warrant to retrieve numerous documents from Joiner's house.